Writing on the Wall...

Wikipedia says the phrase suggests a portent of doom or misfortune...

Neglecting my blogging abilities, I spent this gorgeous weekend entirely outside...yeah! sunshine, tans, and yard work! My huge hedges were trimmed back with a pruner since I failed to do that last Fall and now had about 3 truckloads to haul away. I mowed and watered my tomatoes/pepper/lettuce/zucchini and noticed that I'll have cherries and apricots after all and the raspberries have brambled all over the place. A tiny sprig of rose bush has grown sprays well over a foot in length and hopefully will extend over the shed in the back yard. The iris are opening and I saw the first Mayapple flower I have ever seen and the Jack-in-the-Pulpit has a twin this year!
Oh--breathe-- what lovely floral fragrances....now dissolve that thought.....

All went well and good until Sunday evening when Brigham brought the phone outdoors.... there was no one on the line. “Who was it?” I demanded...”Did they say they wanted Ms. Diederich (uggh-salesperson) or my FIRST name?”
“First.” said my son—he's such a big talker. He went back to Facebooking or couch-potatoing or biting off his toenails or some such activity while I hit my cell phone button out of curiosity.

The guy on the other end of the phone immediately apologized when I asked if someone had dialed this number...he said his buddy had just taken his cell phone into the bathroom.... “Oh my God—are you in Junction City right now?” I asked. He told me he was from Columbia Missouri, but yeah, he was in JC with some friends. He said his friend had found a phone number on the bathroom wall....

(Jesus M F Christ, I think...either in my head or outloud or who cares at the given moment!) Junction City is a large town of bad reputation where most of the soldiers from Ft. Riley hang out. It is said to have strip clubs, prostitutes, stabbings, rapes, and all kinds of activities of ill-repute!

I have never been there.

I told the guy that I didn't live anywhere near that town and I'd gotten a similar phone call before and that I was a teacher... etc. He seemed somewhat taken aback then and didn't seem inebriated at all and was perfectly fine with going back into the bathroom stall when I asked him to read exactly what it said...

“You go--She''ll blow” followed by my name and number. (Wow, what a poet...that's shorter than ee cummings...)

He apologized for his friend and I got off the phone.

Previously, I had been awakened at 3:00am by someone so drunk I could only make out the words “hookin up”.

Again, out of curiosity (no, don't say the cat thing here!), I dialed that number back the next day at noon, whereupon I was told by a sleepy guy that he didn't remember calling anyone.... 10 minutes later the young soldier called me back...same story as above—got my number off some JC cigar bar bathroom stall. He was apologetic too-- especially when I told him that 'I had kids older than he was-probably!' His friends also got on the phone to apologize and claim he was just sooo drunk.... “yes ma'am, no ma'am...Someone really needs to erase it, ma'am” etc.

While I found the situations somehow entertaining in my dull and boring life-- “giggle: Brigham, your mom is FAMOUS!” (to which he responds “Whore!!!”), it is also aggravating and potentially scary. Luckily nothing has happened beyond the phone calls... and I am pretty sure I can credit Stalkerman with that demeaning little poem.

On line information states that writing in men's rooms is generally excitement over a new-found love, but other than 'I love so & so', other messages usually tend to be more focused on sex or revenge. Well, amen for that—I know all about many types of vindictive behaviors now! Someday I will write about Stalkerman, but suffice it to say that I have a pistol down the back of my shorts.

Afterthought....So, men REALLY call phone numbers on bathroom walls? Huh.